A sore loser seeks to help reelect Joe Manchin

Hillary Clinton has a lock on the sore loser of the century award. But dishonorable mention goes to Don Blankenship.

Recently, Blankenship, a convicted criminal, finished third in the West Virginia Republican Senate primary. Today, he announced that he will run as a third party candidate on the Constitution Party ticket.

If Blankenship really cared about the Constitution, or about conservatism, he wouldn’t launch a quixotic campaign the only possible impact of which might be to elect a Democrat, thereby making it more difficult for President Trump to confirm judicial nominees whose decisions will adhere faithfully to the Constitution.

Fortunately, West Virginia has a “sore loser” law. It states that a candidate who runs for the nomination of a major political party and loses “cannot change her or his voter registration to a minor-party organization/unaffiliated candidate to take advantage of the later filing deadlines and have their name on the subsequent general election ballot.”

This provision appears to bar Blankenship from running on another ticket. A spokesman for the West Virginia Secretary of State has said that it does. However, the law isn’t written as clearly as it might have been.

Blankenship says he’ll proceed with his plan to run as a third party candidate and take his chances in court. The last time he took a chance in court a jury found him guilty in connection with an explosion at one of his coal mines that killed 29 workers.